Old portrait of my wife makes sifting through my in-laws’ cluttered estate worth it

I’m still helping sort through the estate of my in-laws and still finding entertaining things.

I’m not hoping for valuable things. That doesn’t happen to me. Or if it did I would miss it.

Still, I check on some stuff from the estate to see what it is worth. It is always interesting to see what a wide variance in prices you find on the internet.

For some reason my in-laws had a 1996 gold foiled Babe Ruth baseball card. Gold might prick up your ears but if it could be salvaged it probably would bring a dollar. As a standalone card it is worthless, I’m told. But very shiny. They also had a Stan Musial Sunkist baseball card. We are talking low rent. Stan the Man is wearing what appears to be an old Cardinals uniform but all the insignia has been removed. The card is number two of a series of five and also worthless.

But the cards were listed on various internet sites for anything from 50 cents to several hundred dollars. Good luck getting bids on that. One man’s treasure is another man’s worthless piece of junk. But I guess an inflated price might draw a fool or two. After all, someone supports all those Nigerian prince scams.

I was a little luckier with a jar full of silver dollars and some pre-1964 silver quarters which are in demand because of their high silver content. They will make a nice present for the grandkids.

But my father-in-law also saved all the special issue state quarters and sites of interest quarters he could. They are worth a quarter apiece unless there is some kind of a minting error, most of which you can’t notice without a microscope. If I ever find all the little bottles of coins tucked about the house and convert them, the national coin shortage will be gone.

But it’s the search that is interesting and often mind blowing. What would anyone want with an entire box of $4.95 wristwatches? How many small collectible ceramic boxes can one person want? And 100 farm caps is about 99 too many. But I know my kids will be equally mystified if they have to clean out my house.

The upside is finding a hidden treasure. Not money, but something you had completely forgotten about. On a closet shelf, upside down, was a charcoal portrait of my wife from high school graduation. I love it.

Finds like that give me the resolve to go back digging among the many boxes and containers still left, I’m determined to uncover the floor eventually and who knows what I will find.